My Daughter Called Me Uncle

Chapter 005

"Husband?"

The word, spoken with such raw, trembling intimacy, was the very sound Derek Faulkner had played in the theater of his mind for eight long years. On the frozen battlefields of the Northern Front, amidst the roar of artillery and the stench of iron and blood, that one word had been his tether to sanity.

But now, as it hung in the air of the V.I.P. suite, it didn't bring warmth. It felt like a poisoned needle driven straight into his soul.

Derek’s gaze was cold, sharp as a surgical scalpel. What did he see? He saw Serena Ashford, the woman he had deified in his memories, wearing sheer black stockings and a skirt that was far too short. She was sitting on a plush velvet sofa in a den of iniquity, a crystal glass of wine shattered at her feet. And standing over her, his shadow practically devouring her, was Peter Yates—the same man who, hours ago, had tried to bury their daughter in the mud.

From Derek’s perspective, the scene was one of sickening intimacy. He didn't see a victim; he saw a woman who had abandoned her dying child to play the part of a woman of the night in a house of pleasure.

The focused force within him, the vital energy he had spent years tempering, began to churn like a dark tide. The temperature in the room dropped until the condensation on the champagne buckets turned to frost.

"Derek... is it really you? I’ve missed you so much!"

The wall Serena had built around her heart—the one made of eight years of bitterness, hunger, and grief—collapsed in a single heartbeat. She didn't care about the wine, the money, or the predator standing next to her. She scrambled off the sofa, her heels clicking frantically on the floor as she threw herself toward him. She wanted to disappear into his chest, to feel the heartbeat of the man who had promised to protect her.

But as she reached him, Derek didn't open his arms. With a face like a mask of frozen marble, he stepped aside.

Serena stumbled, her momentum carrying her past him. she caught herself on the doorframe, her hands trembling as she turned back to look at him. The joy on her face—the legendary beauty of the Miss Ashford—withered into a mask of confusion and agony.

"Derek?" she whispered, her voice cracking. "Why... why are you looking at me like that?"

Derek didn't answer immediately. He looked at her hostess uniform with a disgust so profound it was physical. He was a decorated veteran, a man who had held the Dragon Standard and led the Five Warlords. He had lived a life of absolute discipline and honor. To see his wife—the mother of his child—in this state was a betrayal of everything he stood for.

He remained silent only because of the debt he owed her. Ten years ago, she had saved his life. He wouldn't strike her, but he couldn't love what he saw.

"Why?" Serena’s voice rose, turning into a jagged shard of sound. "Why are you treating me like a stranger? I waited for you! I waited eight years! I scavenged in the trash! I worked as a laborer! I held our family together with my bare, bleeding hands because of a promise you made!"

She stepped toward him, her eyes shimmering with a mix of resentment and heartbreak. "If I had wanted a life of luxury, I could have crawled back to the Ashford family. I could have married any spoiled heir in Riverbend and lived like a queen. But I didn't! I chose to be the wife of a soldier who never wrote back! I chose to be the mother of a 'bastard' who was bullied every single day!"

"Is that why you're here?" Derek’s voice was a low, dangerous rumble. "Is this how you 'hold the family together'? By dressing like a w***e and drinking with the man who terrorizes your daughter?"

Serena froze. The word 'w***e' hit her with the force of a physical blow. Her face went deathly pale, then flushed with a hot, righteous fury.

"How dare you," she hissed, the tears finally breaking free and carving tracks through her makeup. "How dare you judge me? Where were you when the 'Great Ban' was placed on me? Where were you when I was eight months pregnant and had to dig through restaurant bins to find a piece of bread?"

She slammed her hand against her chest. "Where were you when Lemon was diagnosed? When the doctors at Riverbend General Hospital told me she would die if I didn't find ten thousand dollars a week? I am the firstborn heir of a great house, and I am standing here in a skirt I hate, serving drinks to scum, because it is the only way to keep our daughter's heart beating!"

She broke down then, her body racking with sobs that sounded like someone dying. "Everyone else has the right to look down on me. The privileged elite can spit on me. The underclass can mock me. But you? You have no right, Derek Faulkner! You are the one man in this world who doesn't get to judge me!"

Derek felt a tremor in his hand. Her words were like a barrage of artillery, shattering his cold exterior. Pregnant and digging through trash?

"I sent money," he said, his voice struggling to remain steady. "Every month. Ten thousand dollars. A military stipend that should have reached you without fail. For eight years, that money was sent to your account."

In his mind, he had provided. Nearly a million dollars over eight years—enough for a manor in the suburbs and the best private tutors. And the letters... he had received letters from her. Letters that only ever asked for more money, never mentioning a sick child.

Serena let out a hysterical, broken laugh. "Money? What money? I haven't seen a single cent from you since the day you left. My bank account has been at zero for half a decade. I’ve lived on the charity of a street sweeper and the scraps of a club."

The realization hit Derek like a thunderclap. The money. The letters. Someone had hijacked his life. Someone had let his wife starve and his daughter wither while they lined their pockets with the blood-money of the Northern Front.

"I... I didn't know," he whispered.

"Of course you didn't!" Serena screamed, her psychological defenses completely pulverized. "Because you weren't here! You were playing the hero while your family lived in the Inferno!"

"Bravo! What a performance!"

The sound of slow, mocking applause cut through the emotional wreckage. Peter Yates, who had been watching the exchange with the predatory glee of a man watching a car crash, stepped forward. He had recovered his confidence. To him, Derek wasn't a threat anymore; he was just a cuckolded husband, a pretty boy with a tragic back story.

"So, you’re the legendary father," Peter sneered, his eyes flicking over Derek’s simple clothes with disdain. "The 'hero' of the Northern Front. You look more like a lowborn laborer to me. And you're a failure, too. You couldn't even keep your woman from needing my 'generosity.'"

Peter walked over to the table and picked up a stack of hundred-dollar bills, fanning them out like a deck of cards. "You see this? This is what kept your wife from being a beggar. This is what keeps that little 'wild child' of yours in a hospital bed. I’m the one who fed them. I’m the one who clothed them. In fact, I’m the closest thing to a father that kid has ever had."

He leaned in, his voice dripping with malice. "Tell me, Derek... when she called you 'Uncle' at the supermarket today, did it hurt? Did it feel like a knife in your gut to know your own flesh and blood doesn't even recognize your face?"

Derek’s eyes turned a shade of red that wasn't human. The focused force in the room became so intense that the glass light fixtures began to hum and c***k.

"You should be thanking me," Peter continued, oblivious to the fact that he was dancing on the edge of a volcano. "If it wasn't for me, they’d both be dead in a ditch. I’m their savior. I’m the one who gave Serena a job when no one else would touch her."

He looked at Serena, then back to Derek, a sick grin spreading across his face. "Tell you what. I’m a reasonable man. I like Serena. She’s got that 'highborn' spark that makes breaking her so much fun. If you kneel down right now—get on your knees and bark like a dog—and agree to sign the divorce papers, I’ll give you a hundred thousand dollars. I’ll let you walk away with your life. You can go back to being a pretty boy in the barracks, and I’ll take care of the goddess and the brat."

The room went silent. Even the muffled thumping of the club's bass downstairs seemed to die away.

Serena looked at Derek, her eyes wide with a terrifying mix of hope and dread. She wanted him to be the man she remembered—the one who could protect her from anything. But the man before her looked broken, dressed in rags, and seemingly overwhelmed by Peter’s wealth and power.

"Derek..." she whispered, the word a plea for him to do something, anything, to prove Peter wrong.

But Derek didn't look at her. He looked at Peter Yates. He saw the man who had stolen his wife's dignity. He saw the man who had tried to drown his daughter in a puddle. He saw the rot of the privileged elite that had infested his country while he was away defending it.

The energy center in Derek’s lower abdomen began to glow with a cold, white light. The air around him began to distort, a visible shimmer of vital energy that made him look ten feet tall.

"You think you are their savior?" Derek’s voice was no longer human. It sounded like the grinding of tectonic plates, like the roar of a thousand cannons. "You think your paper money can buy the honor of a Grand Healer of the Realm’s wife? You think you can insult the Supreme Warlord and live to see the dawn?"

Peter’s grin faltered. He felt a sudden, crushing weight on his chest, as if the gravity in the room had tripled. He tried to speak, but his throat was constricted by an invisible hand.

"I am the Imperial Sage," Derek said, stepping forward. With every step, the floorboards groaned and cracked under the sheer weight of his focused force. "I have destroyed armies. I have ended dynasties. And you think you can bargain for my family with the price of a used car?"

Derek reached out, and before Peter could even blink, Derek’s hand was around his throat. He lifted the man off the floor with one hand, as easily as if he were a feather.

"You spoke of Lemon," Derek hissed, his face inches from Peter’s. "You called her a bastard. You called my wife a w***e. You tried to poison her soul."

Serena watched, her breath hitching in her throat. She had never seen such raw, terrifying power. This wasn't the man she married. This was something else—a god of war who had come to claim his due.

"Derek, stop!" she cried out, but there was no conviction in her voice. Part of her wanted to see Peter broken.

"He said... he could save Lemon!" she shouted, the desperation returning. "He has the money for the surgery! Don't kill him, Derek! If he dies, she dies!"

Derek turned his head slightly to look at her, his eyes still glowing with that terrifying inner light. "He cannot save her, Serena. He is a maggot in the dirt. I am the heir of the Celestial Healers. I am the one who snatches life from the jaws of death."

He looked back at Peter, whose face was turning a dark, bruised purple.

"You want to see what happens to those who touch what belongs to the Imperial Sage?"

Derek didn't wait for an answer. He threw Peter across the room. The man hit the far wall with a bone-shattering crunch, sliding down to the floor in a heap of broken limbs and ruined silk.

"Colton!" Derek roared.

The doors, already broken, were shoved aside by a man in a high-collared military trench coat. It was Colton Bryce, the Supreme Warlord, his face a mask of cold efficiency.

"Master," Colton said, bowing low.

"Burn this place," Derek commanded, his voice devoid of emotion. "Strip this man of everything he owns. His bank accounts, his properties, his very name. By tomorrow morning, I want Peter Yates to be a beggar on the streets of the underclass. If anyone helps him, they share his fate."

"It will be done," Colton replied.

Derek turned to Serena. She was staring at him as if she were seeing a ghost. The man she thought was a failed soldier was commanding the most powerful man in the army like a servant.

"Come," Derek said, his voice softening only slightly as he reached out a hand to her. "We are going to the hospital. Our daughter is waiting."

Serena looked at his hand—the hand that had just nearly killed a man, yet held the promise of the rainbow she had seen in her daughter's eyes. She took it.

As they walked out of the Blue Horizon Club, the sirens of the Riverbend Garrison began to wail in the distance. The world didn't know it yet, but the Imperial Sage had returned, and the city of Riverbend was about to be remade in his image.